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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Strangemonkey" data-source="post: 701665" data-attributes="member: 6533">I would think that the Cressians are likely to develop cavalry or chariots, or at least perfect them, before anyone else does.Personally, I vote for including Chariots somewhere if not everywhere.  Afterall, cavalry takes a while to get off the ground. A.) They're cool  B.) if you're the Cressians you can chain all sorts of neat things to them.C.) you put a wizard on them and protect the wizard.I want to possit some guesses on how Cressian society develops in between the Jongan Assimilation and the current scenario.First of all, since the Druids ended up on top of Cressian soceity, I'd like to possit that some of the long term forecasts I made earlier had some effect:1.) Cressian society is very broad and deep rather than highly structured, diverse, and hierarchical.   The basic social unit is the village, each of which belongs to a larger group of villages.  Each village in the group shares a lot of community property within itself, though most people live in family units, and social structure and arrangements within the village are fairly fluid.  Government is done primarily by consensus though there are individual systems to modify this and everyone has the right to take matters to a higher, druidic, authority and must do so in cases of serious crime.  Each group shares maintenance and use of certain infrastructures such as strongholds, storehouses, caravans, guild posts, large religious structures, armories, militia, and roads or canals that lead to the hub cities.  The Group is the smallest formal political unit, and runs democratically off of representatives from the various villagers and the advice or authority of their local guild posts.    The guild posts are sort of my term for the larger and more formal 'guilds' of the druid, warrior, scribe, and wanderer.  These organizations are all united under the church, but are made up of people with different types of training and distinct responsibilities.  They recruit from the villages but basically form their own societies and are in charge of creating the larger infrastructures of the nation and keeping the village groups linked to the nation as a whole.  Each guild has its own structure and rules though the druids are generally given prestige as the wisest and best connected to the higher church authority.    druid guild members are in charge of maintaining the health of the landscape and the populace, they lead most religious ceremonies, and form of the judges of church courts and advisors of democratic gatherings.  The field father is their patron.    warrior guild members are in charge of maintaining the armories and training the milities.  they are bailiffs and policeman in the courts and ushers for the democratic gatherings.  The war dog is their patron.    scribe guild members are in charge of history, accounting for the economy of the nation, taxes, forecasting, and arcane magic.  They are in charge of stronghold design and storehouses. They represent the branch of the church into which the druids dumped the cooperating members of the Jongan traditions.  In the church they could be given power to encourage development, but also watched carefully.  At this point they are fully assimilated, but no represent the second most powerful arm of the church.  They serve as the scribes/advocates for the courts and the recorders/heralds for the democratic gatherings.  The lampwatcher, a Cressian interpretation of the Jongan fire diety, is thier patron.   the wanderers are in charge of road design and protection, caravan guidance, trade, and stronghold and storehouse protection as well as general courier and information services.  They also help train the militias and patrol the wilderness areas surrounding and within the village group.  They plan the route and delivery of each village groups market caravan guided by the dictates of the other guilds and the village consensus.  They are the couriers and escorts of both the courts and the democratic gatherings.  Their patron is the lady of flowers and coral, a deity who developed out of the Cressians new respect for the rose lined roads and coral lined ports.          Most Cressians are very proud of their way of life and nation.  The tail of their great wars with the Jongans have been mythologized into the wars of Rose and Fire in which the Jongans are seen as a people misguided by their sociopathic way of life into attacking the obviously morally superior Cressians.  The narrative claims that the Cressians learn to grow thorns to support themselves, but that the Jongans easily adopt to the Cressian way of life when they see the madness of their 'burning ways.'  Ethnic Jongans are occasionally the butt of jokes, but they have also bought the official view and are happily integrated into the society, aside form the occasional rebel who has heard and believed a secret oral history of the Jongan nation.  The courts are known as the meetings of the rose briars, and the democratic gatherings are known as the convocations of the Blooming flowers.  Both attract great attention from the whole village group, particularly as the courts are convened at every religious festival, and their are many, to adjudicate weddings, major property transfers, adoption into one of the guilds, and honors as well as criminal proceedings.  Memorial and initiation ceremonies are held at the flowerings which are called at the specific ceremonial moments, the first rose flowering being the most memorable, and whenever massive decisions must be made: canal changes, requests for militia aid, changes in the law, distributions of market funds, that sort of thing.      The other major social structure in Cressia are the massive market cities.  These are fairly large urban centers, though by no means metropolitan the largest being 50,000 during the greatest religious ceremonies.  Population flows into the city on market and festival days, but the cities always contain the following institutions:      Large temples for guild administration in the surrounding village groups.      A prison.      Vast fortifications and a large military encampment.      Transportation hubs.      Steady water supplies.      Stockades into which and out of which large quantities of the animals that Cressia relies on are bred and processed.      Magical research facilities including large gardens.      Industrial complexes for building armor, heavy tools, ships, and specialty goods.      Storehouses for emergency goods, such as grain for famine, extra weapons, material for rebuilding infrastructure, a treasury with reserve funds, etc.      Giant libraries.      Two central features:        A vast and complex market area into which the goods of other market cities and the goods of the surrounding village groups flow.        A giant complex of temples and palaces in which the leaders and support staff for the upper church hierarchy live, the gatherings of the local village group representatives are held, and the largest religious festivals and entertainment events occur.       Overall Cressia has expanded slowly as the Cressians are careful to maintain the elaborate infrastructures that make their land fertile and that are the foundation of their defenses.  The Jongan isle is notably different from the Cressian mainland only in that the relgious centers of the Market cities are less developed and elaborate while the military and industrial aspects of Cressian life are even more centralized to the great cities.   The church has been careful to even the mix of Jongans and Cressians throughout the empire so as to lessen the threat of revolt or racial violence, a popular tactic in Bronze age civilizations, and careful to promote Cressians in the distinctly Jongan arcane branch of the church.  As a result Jongan members of the high church are far more likely to be encounted as people from the other guilds, though they are still a minority overall.        The high church works hard to limit their work in government in such a way that their own power isn't threatened but that they still have plenty of time to devote to religious necesseties.  This is why the local governments are so democratic and the low church is so strong.  It's also why only members of the high church are likely to have any sort of global or cosmopolitan awareness.   The high church includes important and heroic members of the society from all walks of life.  While the clerical and druidic members have the greater prestige, there is no way the Cressian hierarchy is going to ignore the importance of the Wanderers sailors, the scribes, or the military.  Politics at the level of the high church can be pretty nasty, but the common emphasis on the importance of religion and religious ceremonies is a strong force for unity and peace.        I based a lot of this on North American civilizations such as the Maya and the Inca who I feel are going to have a lot in common with the Cressians based on their conservative use of land the importance of religion in their empires.  Though I have also thrown in some Eastern Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent dynamics.  A bunch of Egypt in there.           Militarily I think the Cressians are going to rock at defense and naval superiority.   I doubt they will be as good on the offensive, and other nations are likely to have superior battlefield tactics and large formations of elite units.  Still I think the Cressian use of light units and magical superiority will make them competitive overall.  Their strong central organization and broad social organization can have advantages and disadvantages for them.  Overall societal unity is a big plus.</blockquote>

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